Hector Pardoe: Marathon swimmer reveals Wales Commonwealth pool hopes

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'I thought my eye had fallen out' - swimmer Hector Pardoe relives Olympic Games injury

Olympic open water marathon swimmer Hector Pardoe has revealed he is aiming to qualify for the 2022 Commonwealth Games for Wales in the pool.

The 20-year-old feared he had lost his eye at Tokyo 2020 after an elbow to the face forced him to retire from the 10km event.

The open water remains his main focus, but Pardoe will also attempt to qualify for next summer's Commonwealth Games in the men's 200m butterfly.

Pardoe trained and competed in England as a young swimmer. But, having been born in Wrexham and growing up over the Welsh border, he is aiming to represent his homeland for the first time at Birmingham 2022.

"It's just something I really want to do," Pardoe told BBC Sport Wales.

"I want to look back on my swimming career and say I've been to an Olympics, I've been to a Commonwealths.

"Being with the home nation, it'd be amazing. And just to experience that pool competition as well because I've never been to a pool competition internationally.

"It'd be an amazing experience so hopefully I can achieve it."

Pardoe was a precocious talent in the pool as a junior. At 12 years old he was consistently ranked as one the best in the country for his age.

But he says that physically he developed late as a teenager and lost ground to his rivals. So he decided to mix up his pool training at Ellesmere College in Shropshire by adding in some open water sessions in a nearby lake and never looked back.

At just 15 years old he won bronze at the World Junior Open Water Swimming Championships - the first Briton to ever get a medal in the event.

After leaving school he moved to the south of France to train full-time. He then qualified for Tokyo 2020 in style, winning the Olympic 10km marathon swim qualifier in Portugal in June.

But his first Olympic experience ended in heartbreak - and a painful eye injury - as he had to retire from the men's 10km open water race after being elbowed in the face.

Image source, Hector Pardoe
Image caption,

Pardoe says he feared he had lost his eye in the incident that forced his retirement at Tokyo 2020.

After taking a break post-Tokyo, Pardoe returned to the pool at his training base in Martigues in the south of France with renewed motivation - and a new challenge.

He still swims up to 75km every week, with the Marathon Swim World Series and World Championships to look forward to in 2022.

But he also hopes to follow those up with his first Commonwealth Games.

Commonwealths 'never on the radar'... until now

His aim is to achieve the Swim Wales consideration standard in the 200m butterfly of 1min 58.79secs at the French National Championships in Montpellier next week.

"I never would've thought I'd be looking at qualifying for the Commonwealth Games in the 200m fly," Pardoe admitted.

"But it's just one of those things that has progressed to another level.

"I was swimming 2:04 before coming out to France when I was 17/18 years old. Then in December 2020 I just thought I'm going to do a 200m fly at the French Championships.

"There was no pressure. It was just a bit of fun. I was in lane eight, but before I knew it was I was third fastest into the final. Then I swam faster in the final and got silver.

"Then I was making jokes that I was a 200m fly swimmer and not an open water swimmer. So that's when it really came on my radar.

"I want to look back on my swimming career and say I've been to an Olympics, I've been to a Commonwealths. And I can't do it in open water because there is no open water [events at the Commonwealth Games].

"But having joked about being a fly swimmer before, now I am and I've got to do the harsh realities of being a fly swimmer.

"I'm doing absolutely gruesome sets which I wasn't doing before. I've been averaging 2.5km to 3km fly per session. I do 10 sessions a week so I've been doing 25km to 30km fly a week.

"Some fly swimmers only swim 45km a week in total. I've still been doing 75km a week."

Pardoe hopes this blend of training will not only add variety to his long days in the pool, but also set him up for an exciting 2022.

A series of open water 10km World Series races will be followed by the World Championships in Japan in May.

It would mark a first World Championships for Pardoe, but also a return to the country in which he was left in tears after his retirement at the Olympic Games.

Then by the summer he could be in Birmingham, in Team Wales red for the first time and competing, internationally, just 60 miles from his home village of Hanmer.

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